love, unbroken
by snapslikethis
Summary: Can a single strand of pearls tell the story of a person's life? A very Lily fic.


"Sssh, darling girl," implores a young mother to the restless baby on her lap. "We're almost done here." Lily, however, has no concept of time, or that her whimpers are disrupting the sermon. She cares only for her mum's soothing voice, bouncing knee, and hands holding her firmly in place when she'd rather be exploring the mysteries that lie beneath the wooden pew in front of them. She squirms again, frowns, then opens her mouth, intent in voicing her displeasure at this imprisonment, only to be distracted when a sunbeam shines through the stained glass, refracting off each of the perfect, tiny balls strung around her mum's neck. She is enthralled.

She tugs on the beads, curious, but her mum bats her hand away—gently, hoping to avoid a tantrum in the middle of service. Lily, stubborn Lily, will not be thwarted: she rather desperately wantsthose pretty, shiny beads, and she wants them now. Quickly, before her mum can blink, she curls two chubby fists around the necklace, yanking with all the force she can muster.

The necklace gives, and she holds it up, smiling in delight, eyes flashing in triumph. Her victory is short lived, for the necklace has snapped in the middle—not at the clasp—and her precious beads cascade off the broken strings. A chorus of tiny pings sounds as they skate away from her, bouncing and scattering across the wooden floor.

Her mum gasps, startling Lily, and her treasures are _lost_.

She bursts into noisy tears.

Her mum rushes down the centre aisle, through the double doors and out of the sanctuary. She paces the foyer, comforting her distraught daughter, biting back her own tears at the loss of her beloved necklace.

The double doors open, releasing the parishioners, by which time Lily's tears have subsided into hiccups. Her mother receives several sympathetic pats on the shoulder, a few judgmental glances, though she ignores those, and several people hand over bits of her broken necklace. After the tiny room is emptied, her parents return and Lily sits in another pew, this time in her elder sister's overly firm grasp.

She sucks on a biscuit, content, oblivious both to her sister's indignant lecture on being naughty in church and her mother and father, crawling under the pews, dirtying their Sunday best as they try to gather every errant pearl.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Her mother's lap is second only to her father's as her favourite place in the world, and it is here she sits while her mum tries to ready herself for an evening out. Though Lily will not recognize the music playing on the turntable in her parents' room as Miles Davis until years later, her two year old sensibility identifies it as decidedly cheerful music. She hums enthusiastically, if a bit off-key, along the various melody lines.

She is handed a distraction, a hairbrush, and makes a proper study of it—tasting it, of course, and pressing the bristles against her cheek, and trying to brush out her short red wisps. Properly distracted, she does not notice when her mum surreptitiously slides a hand down to open the vanity drawer. Her mum deftly dodges a swipe from the hairbrush—Lily, trying to brush _her_ meticulous curls—and fishes out a long, black velvet box. She opens it one handed, extracting her new set of old pearls.

After they'd returned to the church—twice—and only managed to recover three quarters of the pearls, she'd spent months convincing herself that a pearl bracelet would be quite as nice as her necklace had been. Except it wasn't, and she knew it, but she had resigned herself to it. She'd rather have a bracelet than a sack full of pearls. Her husband, bless him or damn him, though they couldn't anything like afford it, had paid a jeweler to have them properly restrung, replacing the missing beads with new. He'd surprised her with it this morning for an anniversary present.

She's startled out of her reverie when the hairbrush clatters to the vanity top. Lily stares the mirror, mirror, mesmerized by the glint of the lamp against the pearls, as her mum's reflection works the fastening.

"Pwetty," she croons, turning on her mum's lap to better inspect the necklace. Her mum grabs both hands, one of which was reaching forward, and pulls them to her lips for a kiss.

"They _are_ pretty, darling girl, aren't they?" replies her mum, smiling down at her. Lily nods. "We shan't touch, though; they're Mummy's."

"Pwetty."

"They were Gran's, you know. And now they're mine. Someday, if you'd like, they'll be yours."

"Gran?'" asks the toddler hopefully. Gran means biscuits and songs and more biscuits, and Lily is always delighted to see her.

"Yes, _Gran_. She and sissy will be back soon. Then you can play together _all _evening. I daresay she'll brings sweets for you. You'll be a good girl for her, yes?"

But her daughter isn't listening. Instead, she points to the necklace again, stopping short of touching it. "Pwetty."

Her mum tilts her head up and leans down to kiss her forehead. "When you're older, darling girl. They're yours. Would you like that?"

Lily nods solemnly—without any real comprehension—when her husband enters the room. The pearls are immediately forgotten. Lily squeals, scrambles down to the floor, and runs forward for a hug.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"Mummy, where you at?" calls Lily as she teeters down the hallway.

She's been working hard, for _ages _and _ages, _and she's keen to show off the finished efforts of her labour.

"Kitchen."

She charges down the hallway, stumbling twice and stopping a third to readjust her dress. She enters the kitchen with a flourish, her arms flung wide. "Ta dah!" she announces, and begins to twirl. "Wook, Mummy. I pretty!"

Her mum looks up from the basket of wash to survey her daughter: Dressed in Petunia's Easter dress, several sizes too large, on backwards and inside out. Her feet are dwarfed by her mother's pump, and her doll dangles from one hand, dragging the floor. Make-up is smeared inexpertly over her face. Of course, the pearls are slung over her neck.

"I _knew _it was awfully quiet back there," replies her mother, though she's smiling. "What's all this? Are you playing fashion show?"

"No!"

"Are you a princess?"

"No!" beams Lily proudly. "I'm a mummy, wike you!"

"And you're a pretty one, too."

Her mum reaches for the Polaroid she keeps handy for moments like these. She asks Lily to twirl again and snaps a blurry picture, freezing this moment in time.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily is getting married today.

True, she gets married nearly every day under the filtered shade of the large oak in the back garden. And true, she usually humours her sister for a mere fifteen minutes, half hour on a good day, before losing patience and abandoning the game to climb the tree, but today is special: Tuney has snuck her Christmas shoes past Mummy so she can be a princess wife.

Except Tuny needs mum's pearls to be a proper princess wife, and she has very wisely sent her younger sister to fetch them. At five, Lily knows right from wrong, that sneaking is wrong, that she'll be in loads of trouble if she's caught. Tuney promised her that she could go first at hop scotch, and two games of checkers. When the bribe didn't work, Tuney dared her to do it.

How is she supposed to resist _that_?

She slips through the back door quietly as she can, listening hard to pinpoint her mum's location: common room. Tiptoeing through the kitchen, past the entrance to the common room, she slowly makes her way down the hall, taking pains to miss the squeaky boards.

Finally, she slips the door to her parent's room open and approaches the vanity. Lily opens the drawer slowly, a millimetre at a time, wincing as wood grates against wood. She reminds herself to run a bar of soap along the bottom, like dad taught her, between now and next time they'll need the pearls.

Except it's too late, because her mum's voice sounds behind her, causing her to jump: "Best to open it all at once, darling, rather than dragging it out like that. Try timing it to the wireless next time."

_Busted._

_-ooo00O00oooo-_

She wonders idly if people wear black because it's a horrid, nasty colour, or if it's earned that reputation people only wear it to funerals. Either way, Lily privately resolves never to wear black ever, ever again.

Gran is _gone_, and Lily swings her legs in the pew, desperately wishing there was one in front of her so she could give it a good, hard kick.

Gran.

It's the same church, Lily knows, where her baby self broke the pearls. She imagines the broken pieces of her heart falling out her body and onto the floor, rolling away from her like those pearls must have done.

She knows, also, that it will be impossible to get them all back.

Gran is _gone._

The tears she's been so keen to avoid spill over, wetting her cheeks, and she can't wipe them away because her hands are occupied. She trembles, heaving in deep, heavy gasps, though there's not enough air, not nearly enough, because Gran is gone—_dead_—and her heart is broken.

_Dead_.

Her sister is being too nice to her, holding her hand like this, and everything is not-not-not okay. They are bookended by their parents: Mummy on Tuney's side, Daddy on hers, holding the other hand. She squeezes until she can't feel it anymore.

She glances at her mum. Through blurry eyes, Lily recognizes the pearls around her neck.

_Gran's pearls_.

She hiccups.

Her mum clutches those pearls like a lifeline, a matching river streaming down her face, though her mum's is tainted black with mascara.

Fitting, that_._

Lily pulls her hands free and tugs at her collar of her dress, wishing she had pearls, too.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily's Mum is loads of things, but being a _bloody-short-order-cook _isn't on the list.

Least, that's what she'd told her girls as they went through their respective picky eater phases. Dinner was never a battle at Lily's house, really, but the rule was simple: if you don't like what's served, that's your prerogative, but you won't get anything else.

You know, because Mum isn't a _bloody-short-order-cook_.

'Xcept on Christmas morning, when that's _exactly _what she is, waking at dawn to make each person's current favourite meal, anything goes, and serving it for breakfast after first presents are opened.

Now that the girls are older—Petunia at thirteen, and Lily, ten—the tradition has evolved. All four Evanses cram into their tiny kitchen, jostling for the prime spot at the counter, huddling over the electric stove, tasting their respective works in progress. Once their dishes are finished—always at the same time, which Lily attributes to magic, and it is, just of the Mum variety—they troop into the living room. Still pyjama clad, they settle on the floor between the cosy fireplace and tinsel draped tree and tuck into their Christmas feast.

It is their unique Christmas tradition, Lily's second favourite. It is absolutely brilliant.

She has finished her toast and kippers and, patting her faux distended belly, leans against her father's shoulder and observes: Mum working her way through a plate piled high with salted chips; Petunia, uncharacteristically undignified, cross-legged, hunched over her plate of triple chocolate pancakes, raspberry jam tingeing her cheeks; Dad sopping up the dredges of his stew with thick slices of buttered bread.

After every bite is devoured, her parents clear the plates and, in a role reversal, tend to the dishes while the girls start on Lily's first favourite Christmas tradition: the scavenger hunt for the 'big' presents.

Big is relative, really, since size hasn't anything to do with it; the hidden gift is either the one each girl wants most, or some years, the one their parents are most excited to give. The rules are simple: each girl has her own gift to find, one clue for every year old, no going out of order, and the presents are somewhere on the premises.

Though Petunia has more clues, she manages to work them out first and finds a turntable and four vinyl records in the back of her father's car. Lily is mad with jealousy, or nearly, because she can't work out the last clue. She glances at her mum in despair, who meets her gaze before deliberately twisting a pearl between her fingers. Her mother looks at her meaningfully.

It's a gesture Lily has seen a dozen times, a _hundred _times, maybe a thousand, but it clicks.

_Pearls._

She races down the hall, darts into their room and whips the drawer open to finds a miniature version of her mother's velvet box. But it's _her_ name, Lily, on the tag. Junior pearls, some might call them, or starter pearls—but Lily doesn't care. It's a rite of passage, like getting her ears pierced last year, and Tuney's had hers for _ages, _and they're absolutely brilliant.

"Do you like them, darling girl?"

Lily rushes to give her mum a hug. "Love them! Can I wear them now?"

"'Course you can." Her mother inclines her head toward the vanity. "Sit down, then."

Lily's eyes widen, but she complies, and her mum moves to stand behind her. "You're growing up, you know, not my darling little girl anymore." Her mum brushes aside the tangled mess of auburn hair—rat's nest, Tuney teases her most mornings, though she didn't today, being Christmas and all.

"Can I wear them to school next week?" asks Lily eagerly. Janice will be fit with jealousy, Lily knows, and Elizabeth has had pearls for two years nd wears them three times a week.

Her mother furrows her brow, pretending to contemplate the matter, before breaking into a smile. "'Course you can. Just no climbing trees with them on, yeah?"

"Fair enough," concedes Lily, nodding. She grins at her Mum's reflection as practiced hands fasten the clasp behind her neck.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Her parents are at the grocers, Petunia has escaped to her mate's, and Lily has been left to entertain herself—sans magic, since the teacup incident—in the house that no longer feels like home. She can't work out if it's she who's changed, or the house. Both, probably, but it doesn't matter because she feels like stranger here, this place that had never betrayed her before, and it _hurts._

Every trip home sharpens the contrast between her worlds, and while she's not entirely welcome in the magical world—_mudblood_—she no longer fits in this one, either—_freak_.

Despite her sister's pronouncements, her parents love her, adore her, but even their love and enthusiasm cannot mask the truth: an entire year's worth of inside jokes, tele programs, arguments, game nights, suppers, and family outings have transpired, and Lily has missed them all. She's never felt more disconnected from anything, and she feels so stifled and hemmed in.

Really, she feels like a right prat for _all these bloody feelings,_ but she can't exactly help it, can she?

She wanders aimlessly between the rooms, searching for something, anything, to pull her out of this. Unconsciously, she finds herself drawn to her mother's room, that old battered vanity, the worn velvet box.

She lets the pearls run through her hand, spins each of the beads between her fingers. She brushes aside her hair, wrapping them around her neck, fumbling with the clasp. Satisfied, she props her chin in her hand, elbow on the table top, and leans forward to examine her reflection.

She's got her mum's eyes.

Her dad's wild, frizzy hair.

Her dad's nose, too, though she owes the freckles on it to her mum's fair complexion.

Her mother's ears, which is an odd thing to inherit, but there you go.

She and her sister share the same crooked smile—Gran's crooked smile, actually, and said smile appears on her face.

She is her mother's daughter, and her grandmother's granddaughter, and these are their pearls.

She is a witch, yes, but she is also an Evans, and the thought inexplicably comforts her.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"So this is your mum's room?" asks Mary, opening the door to her parents' bedroom.

"Yeah."

"She got an alcohol in here?"

"It wouldn't be in _here_."

"Cigarettes?"

"Doubt it. We can look though."

They are bored, sneaking, looking for something rebellious, scandalous—something illicit to ingest, perhaps, though if such a thing presented itself, they wouldn't know what to do. Petunia's room yielded nothing interesting, save for some juicy titbits in her journal about a boy named Daniel, which Lily would definitely taunt her for later.

Mary eyes the vanity. "Oooh, does your mum have diamonds we can try on?"

"No," says Lily, blushing. Diamonds aren't the sort of thing her family can afford, but she doesn't want Mary to know that.

But it's _Mary_, and she recognizes her friend's embarrassment. "Neither does mine," she confesses. "I've only seen them in the movies. My mum's got pearls though."

Lily perks. "Oi, so does mine! Here." She rifles through the drawer and presents the pearls for inspection.

"They're lovely." Pearls are _hardly_ scandalous, but they _were_ lovely, and they deserved the compliment.

Lily shrugged, sounding cooler than she was. "They're just pearls, but I think they were my Grans..." She _knew _they were her Grans, of course, but she didn't want to seem overly earnest...even if it _was_ just Mary.

"Can I try them on?"

Her Mum would _murder _her if anything happened to them, but her parents have driven Petunia to the cinema with her older, cooler friends, and they're so bloody bored, and it's _Mary. _"Sure, MacDonald, but if you break them, I'll give you boils when we get back to school."

"I don't doubt that, now hand them over." Mary puts the necklace on and surveys herself in the mirror, making pouts, fluffing her hair.

Inspiration strikes Lily. "Oi, I know. We can do makeovers...muggle makeovers!"

Their interests in these things—hair, beauty charms—had only recently been piqued, and while they'd picked up a few beauty charms in the first term, they'd had no opportunity to experiment with muggle make-up.

"Brilliant!"

"C'mon, then," prompts Lily, gesturing for Mary to follow her. "Put those back first, before we forget. Mum would murder us both."

Once the box was put away, Lily leads her back down the hall. "We can nick Tuney's make-up."

"Won't she murder us too?"

"Probably, but isn't that half the fun?" asks Lily, devilish smile on her face.

Mary matches her grin.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Petunia has worn the pearls before, it's true—a dance, graduation from typing school, an occasional date—but it has always been nothing more or less than borrowing her mother's pearls. Today, as Lily watches her mother drape them around her sister's neck, careful to avoid mussing her hair, Lily recognizes that this is inherently different. And later, when Tuney and Vernon are at the front, making it official, she grabs James's hand and tries not to cry.

It _bloody-fucking-hurts, _because she ought to be up there, lavender dress be damned, and she's _not_.

She swallows that thought down, or tries to, because today isn't a day for bitter thoughts. Her sister _is_ radiant, truly, and Lily would be awful to begrudge her sister such evident happiness. It's not the pearls that make her lovely. Rather, it's the entire ensemble: the dress, the veil, and mostly, the smile—she's never seen Petunia smile so much. Lovely is rarely a word she would ascribe to her sister, but it's somehow, strangely fitting.

And James holds her hand all the while, tracing small circles on the back. She's looking forward, toward the alter, but she can see that he's looking at her, assessing whether or not she's alright.

Another thought creeps unbidden to the forefront of her mind, something her mother said to her earlier: that maybe _she'll_ be doing this in the not-so-distant future.

Her.

James.

Married.

_Married_?

She tunes out the preacher and indulges the fantasy, trying to see if it suits. It doesn't, at first, but she realizes it's because they would never get married in a church, and she wouldn't want all this fuss—a long veil and embroidered layers of a heavy dress with a bustle, though she wouldn't mind the pearls.

It startles her that the thought—she, James, married—doesn't scare her at all.

She wonders when that happened.

But it's not about her today, or James, or _them, at all, _though she's never been more grateful for his presence. It's about her sister, and she banishes the thought, trying to pay attention as they exchange rings.

Still, she leans into him, resting her head on his shoulder, warming at the spot where he kisses her hair.

Her sister really does look lovely.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Same church as before.

Same awful wooden box at the front, too.

Same pastor with a receding hairline and hairy moles on his chin.

Same pearls.

Except it's not the same, not at all: it's so much fucking worse.

She'd had to amend her vow, the one about wearing black, when she'd gone off to magic school. She'd amended it to say that she'd never wear black to a funeral again. Here she sits, true to her word in a navy blue number. She wishes she'd just sucked it up and worn black, because now navy blue, too, is forever ruined for her.

Her sister is not beside her, either. Rather, she's across the aisle, in her own pew, with her own family—Vernon—in her own cocoon of grief.

Damn them both.

It is James on her left and Mary on her right who keep her together today, or tethered, at least, to something.

Mum and Daddy are not bookending their daughters, protecting them. They are at rest in boxes at the front, indifferent to their daughters' suffering.

Damn them, too, for leaving her like this.

Lily is wearing the pearls. No idea why she thought it would help, because she was so very wrong, because they aren't a lifeline at all. They are choking her, and she is dying with grief, and she wants to rip them off and watch them bounce across the floor. James seems to catch this and pries her hand off, holding both of hers in his own. Much as they mean to her—the pearls—she would surrender them forever if it meant she could her mum call her "darling girl" one more time.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily is getting married today.

Not to her sister, for her sister isn't here, and she's not the groom, who is somewhere secret, hopefully not getting smashed off his arse. His location is a Marauder secret, the idiots had informed Mary, and she smiles at the memory.

She takes a breath and opens the velvet box.

It's been a year, and she's not ready to wear them again—despite her pronouncements to her sister, as they argued over them, that she would wear them every day, she can hardly stand to look at them.

Irony, that.

She's spent the last year burying her grief in the war, in her war, in her cause, in her fight, steadfastly ignoring the pearls, and her dead parents, and her estranged sister.

Today isn't a day for any of _that_, because she is nineteen and she is marrying the absolute love of her life.

_James_.

Her mother was right—about her getting married sooner, rather than later. They aren't going for a church, or matching centrepieces. She's not all fussed up in layers and layers of satin and lace, but she does have the pearls.

It's going to be absolutely perfect.

Her Mum and her Gran cannot be here, and her sister won't, but she will wear the pearls they all got married in, and that will have to be enough.

A tear slips down her cheek, just one bittersweet tear, because she's bursting with happiness, really, it's just that this bit—missing them—it's so damn difficult.

Mary understands, though. Mary always understands, and she blots the tear with a kiss to her cheek. She pulls Lily's shaking hands away from the necklace and fastens the clasp around her best mate's neck.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"You love those things," says James as he watches her from their bed. They've been married for two months; and it's more or less the same as before, except she teases him when he calls her Evans. He'll never stop calling her Evans.

She's got her mum's busted old vanity, not nice enough for Petunia's house, but it suits her fine, though it feels like a terribly _adult_ thing to own. She pulls the pearls out too look at them sometimes, though she rarely puts them on.

"I do," she admits.

"Why don't you wear them?"

"My mom always said that 'classy girls' wore pearls."

"That explains it, then," said James, grinning at her reflection.

She sticks her tongue out at him.

"Really, though. Why not?"

She sighs. "Because it _hurts, _James. Every memory I have of them is tied up in _her, _and_—"_

He surges off the bed and hunches over her to give her an awkward hug. "Ssh. I know, love. I'm sorry." He holds her like that for a bit, rubbing circles on her back, before her muffles into her hair, "It's your choice, Evans, but if you love them, you should give them new memories."

"You think?"

"I do. Maybe it's time to give them a new legacy."

She closes the box. "I'll think about it, yeah?"

"Mmm," says James, but he is distracted, working at her neck, and the pearls become the last thing on either of their minds.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Eventually, as she often does, she takes James's advice to heart.

It starts at Mary's wedding. She wears them as she stands up and watches her best friend marry a sweet, unassuming, honest bloke, trading MacDonald for Cattermole.

After a particularly successful mission, they've saved lives and they're riding high and everyone is going to an out of the way pub to celebrate, at least the younger Order members. They pop home to freshen up, get distracted in the shower. She puts on the pearls, as she gets dressed to go out, catches James's knowing smile in the mirror.

She beings to wear them on every date with James, even for take-away on their sofa, out to the cinema, to the pub, for a hike, until she loses count.

It works_, _after a fashion, though she flat-out refuses to wear them to funerals—only happy memories from here on out.

She wears the pearls—just the pearls—on Valentine's day. James _likes_ that.

On Christmas morning, they make a mess in the kitchen, carrying on the tradition her parents had started. Their breakfast is burnt, barely edible, but she wears her pearls as they plop in front of the fire and stuff themselves silly, burnt food and all, while they wait for the boys to arrive.

They are in a war, a brutal, horrific war that's not getting any better. Happy moments aren't given to them, they've got to demand them, carve them out, will them to happen.

They do just that.

For every smile, every joke, every twirl in the kitchen at two in the morning, it is James, and Lily, and her pearls.

-ooo00O00oooo-

And suddenly, without notice—or so it seems—everything is swiftly, irrevocably altered, the entire trajectory of their lives have changed, because now it's James, Lily, and her pearls, and their _baby. _

She is bloody pregnant, and they are completely fucked.

He is with her when she does the charm—it's not the sort of thing she could handle without him right there, beside her. She doesn't know how anyone can. It's just not _them, _to do something like this alone, and he's squeezing her left hand as she does the charm with her right.

They're completely fucked, because it's _purple_—which means yes, and boy, and she sobs in terror. But they make eye contact and know, just as suddenly, that they can't give him up.

Don't ask them why, like Sirius did, because they couldn't tell you.

They abandon the war, their cause, their comrades, they _have _to, though it kills them.

The baby—their son, _little snitch_, they've taken to calling him—becomes their new mission.

Afraid they'll get lost in the move, she wears the pearls as they move into the cottage and erect the wards to keep them safe...as safe as they can be.

She can't bring herself to take them off. Not when she's vomiting at three in the morning, James behind her, pulling her hair back, or when she's eating a third helping of pancakes at four in the afternoon.

They're a talisman, keeping them all safe, or maybe it makes her feel closer to her mum.

She's going to be a mum.

Her left hand curls absently around the necklace as they paint the nursery yellow.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Harry is here, and everything has changed.

She never stops talking to him, but neither does James—she tells him about grand dad, and mum, and gran. Her mates. His wild Uncles. Every story she can think of, though he's too young to get any of it.

She loses herself for hours, memorising every facial feature, tiny gesture, expression.

She learns how to become a Mum, and James a Dad, by trial and error. They miss their parents desperately, make loads of mistakes, lose their tempers at three in the morning when he will _not stop bloody crying._

But, you know, they sort it out, how to be a proper family. Her pearls are their constant companion.

They were starved for happy moments before, when they were fighting, but here, shut away, though the war still weighs on their minds, it's burned to a dull ache when Harry is awake.

Harry.

Everything, even the war, is eclipsed by Harry.

She is a mum, and Harry is everything, and the happy moments come faster than she can keep up.

It's a good problem to have.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Harry is eight months old when he first breaks the pearls.

She is juggling pancakes with her wand, the paper levitated in front of her, Harry, fussy and teething, who refuses to be put down, rests on her hip. She's not paying him enough attention but she's _hungry _and breakfast can't wait for James to get out of the shower. There's been an attack, and she's devouring the grim details, searching for names. She's trying not to step on the bloody cat.

He reaches, quicker than she can blink, and pulls them straight off her neck; she cries out as the beads scatter everywhere, even into the pancake batter.

She steps on the bloody cat, which skids away, slipping on the scattered beads.

Harry bursts into tears.

James bursts into the kitchen, wild eyed, wondering what's going on.

He can't bloody see anything_, _but he's looking at her expectantly, and he'sstarkers and dripping wanted to cry a moment before, but bursts out laughing instead. She hands off her baby to her dripping husband, summons the pearls and sorts the necklace to rights with a quick _reparo._

Really, being a witch has its perks.

-ooo00O00oooo-

It's been two weeks since the first time, and she reluctantly puts her necklace away, charming the drawers shut because Harry has learned how to crawl, and open drawers, and _nothing _is sacred.

She's got to put the pearls away, because Harry is delighted with this new trick—break Mummy's beads—and he's broken them nearly every day.

At least she doesn't wear glasses, like poor James: swiping specs off Dada's face is Harry's second favourite game.

-ooo00O00oooo-

Lily has a date with her husband.

They are still in hiding, and the war is as grim as ever. While they love Harry to the ends of the earth, they are going absolutely mad, and they need a break. They refuse to leave him, though—even for a few hours, even with Padfoot, even on their anniversary.

So Padfoot, best uncle and brother and best mate that he is, has come to babysit while Lily and James pretend their back garden is their favourite restaurant.

Lily wears her favourite dress—James's favourite dress, too—and frowns when it's a bit snugger in the hips than she remembered.

He meets her at the bottom of the stairs, like a right romantic idiot, and he's made Padfoot fetch flowers, which she sets in Petunia's horrible vase. They wave good bye to their baby and walk through the kitchen into the garden.

Lily is amazed, and touched, and happy because James _is _a romantic idiot: he's made them a picnic with chips from their favourite pub, and good, strong alcohol, even fairy lights in the tree. Miles scratches a melody on the turntable.

They graze their chips, reminiscing about their favourite dates of yore.

They huddle over the mirror at eight-thirty, waving goodnight to Harry, who is calling from his nursery in the floor above them. Sirius winks at them before wiping the mirror clean.

Lying back on the blanket, they watch the stars rise, then begin to wane, and they forget that they are soldiers, then not soldiers, and parents. He is the boy who charmed her when they were seventeen, and she is nothing more or less than a girl with a pretty necklace.

They dance, and twirl, and it's good—_so good_—to be Lily and James again.

In the early hours of the morning, as they're stumbling through the house, trying not to wake their boys, somewhere between the garden and their bedroom, James undoes the clasp of her necklace with his teeth.

-ooo00O00oooo-

"Darling boy," she scolds Harry, exasperated, pulling his hands away from her neck. She hoped he'd moved past this. "You cannot break Mummy's pearls or your sister will never forgive you."

James looks up from the paper, startled, and stares at her from across the table. "Something I should know about, Evans?"

"What?"

"You just told Harry his _sister _would never—"

"Oh!" she laughs, swallowing down her toast. "_Hypothetical_ sister...you know, to give these to?"

"Right. The colour returns to his face, but then he asks, "How hypothetical though?"

"What? I was just teasing Harry, James—"

"I know you were, but have you ever thought about it?"

"Well, yeah... Why?"

"Well, why not? What else have we got to do?"

It is Lily's turn to startle, and she stares at him, waiting for further elaboration.

"Do you really want to wait until the war's over?" he presses. "We can't put our lives on hold."

Funny, _that_. Their lives are absolutely on hold. This—their family—is, perhaps, the one thing they _can_ control. "Do you _want_ another one?"

"Maybe," says James, shrugging, taking a sip of his tea—which he keeps far out of Harry's reach—and rambles into it. "I dunno. I grew up alone, you know, but I always pictured..._more..." _He looks up at her, "I don't want Harry to grow up alone."

"Neither do I, really either, I just..."

"Same," confirms James. "Look, love, nothing to be decided today. Not like I'm going to shag you right here," he says, smirking at her. She blushes, smiling at a particular memory, and he amends, "I mean not with Harry awake and everything... But listen, Batty'll be over in a bit for tea within the hour. I'll take Harry and get breakfast cleaned off." Harry coos as James scoops him out of the high chair and carries him into the hall.

"Oi, I nearly forgot," calls James. She rises from the table and pokes her head out of the kitchen. He is leaning over the banister, staring down at her. Harry, sitting on his shoulders, cackles madly. James grins at her and says, "Happy Halloween."

-ooo00O00oooo-

No one pays any mind to the pearls around Lily's neck, but Mary knows better.

Her best mate in the world—her _sister_—is gone. The world is celebrating, but she hasn't stopped crying for three days.

She sits next to Remus, who has lost three brothers in as many days, and she feels guilty for her pain

Lily is sleeping, unknowing, in a box at the front of this awful, god forsaken church, and Lily's pearls aren't supposed to be buried with her.

But she can't bring herself to reach in and take them off—not even for Harry, that darling boy.

Harry, who is stuck with that wretch of a sister.

Harry, who she doubts she'll ever see again.

It's wrong—it's _all_ bloody wrong, and Mary is powerless to stop it.


End file.
